


Spellbound

by Linane



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood, Dark Fairytale, Depression, Graphic Torture, Hunter!Kili, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Major Character Death (not pernament), Suicide Attempt, Think: Grimm Brothers Fairytales, Werewolf!Fili
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-06-03 23:31:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6631531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linane/pseuds/Linane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dark and twisted fairy tale with one heart lost, one heart stolen, blood on their hands and kindness of their touch.</p><p>For the <a href="http://gatheringfiki.tumblr.com/post/142500508170/springfre-prompts-masterlist">Spring Fandom Raffle Exchange</a>, prompt #138: FiKi - Werewolf!Fili, or something with werewolves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinigami714](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinigami714/gifts).



> Please mind the tags and warnings on this story, it is pretty dark, but with a happy ending :)

 

 

 

It’s smaller than Kili expects.

They are usually smaller; fear playing tricks on the minds of those who live to tell the tale.

Around a 100 pounds, male, and unusually for this time of the year, alone.

Kili freezes, listening to the forest around him, sensing that their game is almost over - the dawn isn’t too far off.

The wolf has to die – there is no doubt in Kili’s mind, no sympathy. He’s seen the corpses; throats ripped wide open, all the way to the spine, missing hands and fingers, mangled limbs.

When it happens, there is no warning.

By the time he can catch the soft, thundering sound of paws barely brushing the ground, the creature is almost upon him.

 _The Golden Death_ the villagers call it, but all Kili can think of is the tortured blue eyes.

On a single breath he notches an arrow, draws and loosens it – eyes trapped by the silent grace before him, no more than an involuntary reaction of the body.

It flies, but it doesn’t fly true, and Kili watches it rip the fur, skin a muscle on the wolf’s right shoulder – laughably little and certainly not enough to stop the wolf.

He knows he signed his life away.

His last conscious thought as the 100 pounds of muscle barrel into him, tackling him to the ground, is that he’s wearing a light chainmail with a collar around his neck. It will take time to chew through and if the creature is as intelligent as Kili believes, it’ll go for the internal organs instead.

It’s not going to be quick.

 

\---

 

Fili comes round to the taste of blood in his mouth.

Again.

 _No_.

He retches violently and immediately collapses back to the forest floor, gasping from the agony ripping through his chest at the movement.

Too soon.

Like always, it takes time to get used to the pain, but when he does, he will try to find the body, try to memorise whatever’s left of the face.

He doesn’t notice the wound on his shoulder until he’s upright again.

So this one didn’t run; this one tried to stand his ground.

The bravest people are usually the kindest ones. Or the most foolish ones.

This one –

Shallow breaths, eerily still, unconscious. Blood mostly around his left forearm, hip and side. A mop of brown hair covering his face, like fingers reaching out to close his eyes one final time.

Fili drops to his knees. They never lived before.

It’s been so long since he touched another that the warmth of the stranger’s skin almost burns his fingertips.

A tiny, treacherous part of his mind whispers promises of a voice capable of spinning words and eyes able to comprehend. A much bigger, more familiar part insists: _if he lives, we will have to move_.

There’s a certain quiet ease to having nothing left, to not having to care, to being able to take his chances.

He isn’t strong enough to carry the stranger, and his right hand keeps slipping, slick with the blood lazily trickling down his arm, but he grits his teeth an drags the body along the rotting forest floor.

 

\---

 

“You should stay here. There are horrors in the dark that you cannot comprehend.”

It is hard to distinguish shapes through the trembling, clumped eyelashes, but Kili does remember this: a man with long blond hair, watching the sun slowly lean towards the uneven line of trees.

He can’t see the face, can’t see the eyes.

After that, nothing.

 

\---

 

Fili watches the way the damp chestnut strands twist into ringlets, heavy with moisture. He stares at the red flowers blooming through the linens wrapped around the pale skin and thinks of poppies. He looks at nails, dirty with soil and finds something soothing about their shape.

He tells himself these things captivate him because they’re a bit like movement, like laughter and the things he thought he forgot.

He tries not to nurture any hope, but he does put in countless stitches, just in case.

 

\---

 

It isn’t much. The hunter’s lodge they’re using has only the barest of necessities: one table, one chair, one bed. A dusty fireplace. Roof over their heads.

It’s hazy at first: hands that aren’t cruel, a glimpse of a jaw covered in a short beard and the voice that sounds like the murmur of the forest.

He’s hurt; he can feel the pain radiating from his side.

But somehow he feels safe.

 

\---

 

“Why?”

“Isn’t it the right thing to do?”

“Nobody lives in these woods. Not since the attacks.”

“I’m not from around here. I was just passing by.”

Kili swallows the lies together with the water and contemplates the incomprehensible.

 

\---

 

Sometimes, when Kili is asleep he leans into his hands as they run damp cloth over his skin.

It won’t last of course, but Fili carefully files the sensation away.

 

\---

 

It’s still out there, at night.

Kili can hear the howling, just the one voice, and he can’t help but think that it sounds like cries.

 

\---

 

“You never told me your name.”

A part of Fili wants to laugh and he doesn’t know what to do with that feeling. “What does it matter?”

“There are bandages under that shirt, but you’re pouring chamomile extract over my scuffed knuckles to clean them. It matters _enough_.”

Fili actually pauses at that. “I don’t have much,” he says slowly, staring at the dirt mixing with blood and water in the darkness of his wooden bowl. “But it doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to care. There are some things that cannot be taken away from me.”

“Mine is Kili,” the man almost interrupts, as the last vowels of Fili’s response still hang heavy between them. “You saved my life. I won’t ask again if you prefer, but it will make for an awkward conversation.”

“Fili,” it bubbles over before he can stop it and he thinks that words are little traitors that enjoy roaming in herds.

He sighs, because laugh lines are easier forgotten when they don’t come with a name.

 

\---

 

The first time Kili decides to follow his host into the night, he’s still so weak, there is no way he can keep up.

That leaves him a fair distance behind and, conveniently, downwind.

He doesn’t understand what he sees: a thick, naked body, collapsing to its knees with a groan, painted in golden in the last rays of the setting sun.

He blinks, but the image is forever imprinted in his eye.

Then screams, as the same body is strung up by an invisible force mid-air, by the wrists. Something happens, but Kili can’t see, watching from behind, except for the trembling muscles of the man’s back, the legs kicking out in agony and the cries that turn inhuman. Not animal howls either; just the sound capable of stopping Kili’s heart.

To hunt without fear is to throw one’s life away. And yet he’s never felt anything like this grip of terror he feels now.

Something splatters wetly to the ground, then several things hit the leaves with a dull click.

It all ends, horribly, mid-scream, with a single violent spasm, and Kili knows, deep inside, that the man who cared for him is dead, killed by something so powerful that it crushed him like an insect.

He flees as fast as his weakened legs will carry him, ignoring the pain in his side, ignoring the loud thuds behind him, ignoring everything except the need to find the deepest, darkest hole possible to crawl into.

There are _always_ worse nightmares lurking in the dark than the ones you know.

 

\---

 

He stares at the exhausted man walking through the door shortly before noon.

He has no weapon, except the ability to keep a passive face. He doesn’t think he’d live, if his host was to turn him away now, or worse, if he decided that Kili wasn’t allowed to walk away with the knowledge –

It’s lies, of course.

Lies he wraps around the Big Bad Darkness like blankets, like a child who believes they are safe to sleep on top of the bed when there are monsters living underneath it.

So long as he keeps his feet under the covers –

He sees the way Fili holds himself, as if he was brittle; the way his every movement is like a penance, the distance he keeps, the briefest of glimpses of the person buried under it all.

That is the truth.

And if Kili is absolutely honest with himself, the way Fili’s eyelashes are so pale, they sometimes seem to glow in the strong light captivates his soul enough to provide for days of quiet contemplation and eclipse the howls in the dark.

 

\---

 

He knows he is watched; watched and judged and untangled piece by piece, and he bristles each time Kili _nearly_ reaches out a hand to hold him up.

He likes to pretend that somehow this whole thing could still end without any consequences.

He should know better; he really should.

“Why are you here, my liege?” Kili asks quietly one crisps afternoon and Fili draws into himself. “What happened to you…?”

“Don’t call me that.” Eyes averted to trace the shadows in the corners, hoping that Kili will drop the matter.

“You disappeared three years ago. How long –“

“Long enough not to care.”

 

\---

 

The wounds heal; at least some of them do.

It’s somehow harder to bear now, knowing the sound of another’s laughter and knowing that one day soon it will be taken from him.

 

\---

 

It’s another three weeks before Kili heads off into the night again.

He can’t tell what is driving him, except that this time he must know for sure.

He can move easier now and he’s always been quiet on his feet, so when it all starts he finds himself in the front.

He won’t look away as the man strips himself bare, takes in the contours and sharp angles chiselled by muscle.

Broad shoulders, pale skin, dusting of golden hair, and scars, quite a few for one so young, too many for a prince, including one still raw and badly patched up on his right shoulder.

 _I did it_ , he thinks, cannot stop the thought before it sinks in.

He makes a mistake when Fili’s chest is revealed from under the thick swatches of bandages. There’s a barely closed wound there, flesh torn apart so many times, it looks more like raw meat than living flesh.

Kili gasps and it’s enough for the blue eyes to lock with his.

“No –“

But it’s too late, and Fili is falling to his knees, fingers flying to press against his wound and a pained groan ripping itself from his throat.

Rivulets of blood running down his torso, disappearing into the soft valley between his hip and thigh.

“Run!” he rasps out with enormous effort, fingertips clawing at something that is being done to him, but –

Kili thinks of the same hands patiently brushing his hair away from his face, of quiet, steady voice and the eyes that watch him with concern.

His feet have sunk roots into the damp earth beneath him; there is no way out.

He watches a crucifixion, or something worse.

Invisible strings spread Fili like an eagle in mid-air by his wrists, so he can do nothing to cover himself or what is happening to him.

The last shred of a human soul shatters inside a single look they share just before the skin is ripped open and Fili gives that inhuman howl of agony and throws his head back.

More blood, thick and dark, reflected in the pinpricks of Kili’s irises.

Then a quiet snap-snap of ribs being broken out; one, two, three, four, wild trashing of a strung up body, before the bones are dropped carelessly to the ground like child’s toys.

He can see it then: Fili’s beating heart inside his chest, a frantic, rabbiting pulse that would feel like fear against Kili’s fingertips.

“No!!”

He knows what’s coming; in truth his mind knew all along how this ends and now it’s like peeling the layers away.

When it happens, it’s as if an invisible fist grips Fili’s heart and squeezes it tight, until it bursts in a thick pulse of blood and all the muscles locked in agony release and go lax.

He’s seen death before, countless times, but never like this.

Never a life torn out with such terrifying ease, turning a person he used to know into nothing more than a corpse broken and dripping with blood mid-air.

For a second it’s eerily quiet, not even songbird cutting through the suffocating spring evening.

 _At least it’s over, at least he isn’t screaming any more,_ he catches the stray thought, loud in the silence, and immediately hates himself for it.

More than anything Kili wants to take him down, to touch him, as if it could prove somehow that a soul once existed inside those unseeing blue eyes and that soul was kind.

But it isn’t over yet.

As if bored by a toy that won’t jerk anymore, whatever grips Fili flings him with speed that shouldn’t be possible against a nearby tree and Kili wants to be sick at the dull crunch of a spine being broken.

Then again, in the opposite direction.

And again.

Kili cries out when the corpse hits the tree inches away from him, giving him the perfect view of a bruised face.

Eventually the force flings him back at the ground, the body scraping a clear trail in rotting leaves before it all stops and everything goes quiet once more.

This time Kili launches himself towards him, the shock forgotten and his stomach rolling.

Fili feels cold already, when Kili places a careful hand over the bruised flesh of a dislocated shoulder.

 _He didn’t deserve it,_ the thought is vicious and sharp with uneven edges formed by the need to lash out, to avenge the man Kili barely knew. _Nobody deserves this._

Perhaps that sentiment is enough, perhaps someone or some _thing_ can hear him, when a miracle happens and the bones start to align themselves with a dull crunch right under his fingertips.

Perhaps it’s about the forgiveness.

He watches transfixed, as the cuts on Fili’s face close and bruises heal, as his whole back rearranges itself to correct the curve of his spine.

 _I forgive you_ , he thinks feverishly, even if he has no idea what Fili’s sins are, because it seems to be working, up until the point where his arms and legs seem to melt away into much thinner paws, his chest expands to accommodate a much broader ribcage and his face stretches into a maw.

Kili blinks and before him lies an injured golden brown wolf.

He scrambles back when a shiver runs through the creature, and it gives a soft growl.

He remembers what death looks like.

He remembers the tortured blue eyes that nearly cost him his life.

He remembers the fear.

A snarl and the wolf hauls itself to its feet and Kili thinks that he knew this too, only he got captivated and now he is lost.

It prowls after him, about as slow as Kili is backing away, teeth bared and eyes full of hatred.

They both stop when Kili’s back hits a tree and he pulls a knife from behind his belt.

He thinks there should be a spark of recognition, there just _has_ to be, because this is Fili, somewhere underneath this wounded animal is the person Kili was just getting to know.

There isn’t.

When the wolf launches himself and Kili tightens his grip on his blade, he knows he will sink it all the way to the bone, as many times as he has to, whatever it takes for him to survive.

Except the creature ignores him, veering off to the side and rushing right past him to disappear off into the night.

He can barely feel the damp ground, when he finally allows his legs to buckle under him.

There should be relief flooding through his veins, but there isn’t; there’s only the dull ache of the suffering he has witnessed.

In the thick, dark air of the spring evening nothing is as it seems.

 

\---


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

“Tell me.”

It’s shortly after noon, when his host returns. He closes the door behind him and leans against it, as if he could run away easier if the need arose, or perhaps to cut off Kili’s only escape route.

“I can’t even remember his name,” the blue eyes look tormented, but Fili doesn’t look away. “He was a servant, in the castle. I must have… done something, or perhaps he took the kindness I showed to all those who shared my home for something that it wasn’t. He believed we were in love.”

Kili nods, throat dry, because he thinks he knows where this is going.

“I was young, I tried to explain, but he wouldn’t listen. His exact words were: ‘You crushed my heart and I will crush yours. I will expose you for the monster that you are.’ I didn’t know he was a witch. I didn’t know what it could do…”

“He hexed you.”

A nod. “Magic is a bitch. It fulfils its orders to the letter. Sometimes I think it enjoys my agony, but then I guess he would –“

“It’s not –“

“It doesn’t matter. You’ve seen what happens to me. The Wolf – at least that’s what I think it is – has an inhuman recovery rate. It’s much harder to kill than I am, so it must restart the heart, heal the wounds, because by the time I come round in the morning, it all looks several weeks old. That man - he wouldn’t let me go back then, and he doesn’t let me go now. It would be too easy if I died only once, so instead I die every time the sun sets,” he laughs bitterly and Kili closes his eyes and tries to steady his breathing.

“Are you there? When it’s the Wolf?”

“No. I can only piece together what happens. It must feed to heal. I often find prey, raw meat half-digested in my stomach. Sometimes corpses. I try to bury those deep, so they can’t be dug out.”

“Fili –“

“I didn’t know at first,” it’s so quiet that Kili doesn’t dare interrupt again. “I didn’t know what was happening. By the time I realised and tried to run, it was too late. I have human blood on my hands – the slow, the weak, the helpless. Even yours. I tried to disappear, but even here –”

“And yet… You could have left me to die there, but instead you took me home, even knowing the risks.”

“You didn’t deserve to die,” he says it slowly, as if he wanted it to sink in. “And I… I still have a human conscience.”

Kili nods slowly. “And now? Are you going to kill me? I know your secret now...”

“I saved your life, didn't I?” Fili sighs, and it’s as if whatever sparks have been lurking in his eyes since their quiet conversations started, died. “You should go. Return to yours, go back to those that love and care for you. You are strong enough now to make it back to the main road. I will be long gone from this place by the time you can return with the others."

 _To kill me_ , he doesn’t say, but Kili can hear it all the same.

It makes him pause and look around, because the tiny hunter’s lodge feels like home, like a tiny speck of safety in the huge wilderness of darkness, and he isn’t even sure when that happened. He looks at the two pairs of antlers above the fireplace and a single, huge, golden pine cone on the mantelpiece, which have no practical value, except that Fili must have found them important enough to keep them.

 _I don’t have much_ , he remembers.

Except this place where he can suffer alone and try to keep others safe.

He wonders, vaguely, if he _did_ return with the villagers armed with snares and pitchforks, if the pine cone would still be left on the mantelpiece.

Or if Fili would still be here, despite his assurances, sitting at the table and waiting for them.

“Go!” the blond growls, eyes cold.

“No.”

It’s an impulse decision, and perhaps a stupid one, but hardly the first one for Kili.

Instead he takes out the knife he hid in the furs in his lap and places it slowly on the low stool by the bed, never missing how Fili’s eyes follow the movement.

“You won’t kill me, and I won’t kill you either,” he says carefully, licking his lips and hoping that the few weeks they spent together will be enough to earn something fragile, something like trust. “I won’t hurt you. I want to help.”

“Fool! I told you, I don’t control it, it’s only a matter of time –“

“Every hex has its release,” he continues, getting back to his feet, drawn to the man who laid himself bare because he thought it was the right thing to do. He feels like he’s the predator this time, stalking his prey, but Fili doesn’t try to run, not even when Kili is right in his personal space, with both his forearms against the solid wood of the door.

He’s taller, and he’s not sure how he never noticed before.

He leans down for a kiss because he wants to; because the notion that he could save Fili somehow, has never left him.

He kisses slow and thorough, stealing hot breath and folding himself around the other body; he kisses in the most tender and kind way he knows how, returning the feelings he himself was shown.

It’s the most real thing he felt since that first night in the woods.

Fili doesn’t kiss back, but doesn’t resist either, only his eyes soften, as if he can’t guard himself any longer.

“Do you feel any different?”

“No.”

He pulls back, except for his hand tangled in the gold of Fili’s hair.

“Let me stay. Let me try and help you figure this out.”

It takes a moment, but finally Fili nods.

 

\---

 

He remembers the look of terror and pity on Kili’s face before his heart burst.

Nobody ever saw him change before, for which he is glad now.

Who could ever love such monster?

 

\---

 

The trust between them isn't built when one early afternoon Fili finally sways on his feet and is almost forcibly moved into the single bed they have between them.

"Sleep, you fool. How long did you think you could keep going?!"

For weeks, months almost now. First, because Kili was injured and to move him was dangerous. Then - because it started with the hunter and his prey, so to sleep in his presence would be to show weakness.

Mostly he's relying on the Wolf to keep him going. He hopes that the exhausted animal falls asleep more, rendering it less of a lethal threat that it otherwise is. This, and he's slept rough, on the cold forest floor, naked and shivering. Tired enough not to care, and anyway, unconsciousness helps him escape the worst of the pain.

He falls asleep careful, wary, for a time pretending to doze, but watching Kili through his eyelashes.

There's only so long he can resist the sweet pull of oblivion and eventually the game is up.

But that isn't how their trust is built.

No, he begins to trust when Kili _wakes him up_.

"The sun is setting," he says, warm hand still on Fili's shoulder. "You have just over an hour."

A grunt for a response seems non-committal enough, masking how important this moment is for him.

"But first... I caught a rabbit, made a stew. You should eat," Kili offers, and it's matter of factly enough that Fili feels he can accept.

 

\---

 

He watches the man fight the beast inside.

He concludes that he will never forgive something so cruel done to one so gentle and kind, twisting him into this guarded, quiet creature.

He doesn’t love him of course, but he thinks that he _could_ , if Fili allowed him closer.

And if Fili needs saving, then perhaps Kili could be his hero.

 

\---

 

People are tricky.

Mostly they want to hurt him, or use him, or just chase him away. He knows arrows from their hands, stones, curses and cries of fear.

In another life he would have been the hunter. He’d have protected his people.

Fili thinks about death often, until it becomes a familiar friend, whose embrace he welcomes because it means blissful oblivion.

But then he watches the dark-haired lad hum some tune he doesn’t know as he hangs the washed bandages to dry and his thoughts are all de-railed.

He curls up in on himself and thinks that if this is some new torture, then it’s a cruel one.

 

\---

 

Fili likes warmth. He likes all things soft and comfortable, perhaps because it’s so rare that he can have them.

He doesn’t say as much of course, but Kili watches the movement of his fingers through the thick bear pelt they use for covers; it helps him relax.

He likes his meat really well done, on the verge of crispy, and well-seasoned. Kili thinks it’s because the Wolf prefers raw.

He’s used to the silence and sometimes Kili has to work hard to draw him out of his head.

He likes books; perhaps the only indulgence of civilisation he truly misses.

Kili hasn’t read all that much in his short years, but he has always been a good listener and he has an endless supply of stories to share.

He watches the blue eyes drop their guard and a body unconsciously moving closer and he thinks it’s almost as good.

 

\---

 

“This isn’t a fairytale. _I’m_ not a fairytale! This is my _life_. You barely even know me!”

_Why did you give me hope?_

 

\---

 

He watches endless departures.

Fili always leaves; there always comes a point when it’s time to die.

And sometimes Kili picks up the axe and chops ridiculous amounts of firewood well into the early morning hours.

 

\---

 

He is kissed daily.

No matter what happens, every day, without a fail.

Fili doesn’t believe in that ridiculous notion that true love can save him, but Kili does and he doesn’t want to take that hope away from him.

He knows the world without hope; he doesn’t wish it on another.

It’s odd at first.

Honest, perhaps more honest than anyone’s been with him in a long time, but it makes it full of things he doesn’t normally associate with a kiss. There’s kindness and gentleness and curiosity and Fili bristles, because it’s too intimate, too precious to him, for such simple things.

It will cost him in dreams he can’t control and memories he won’t be able to shake.

But it feels hot and human and impulsive and perhaps he’s forgotten what these things are like.

He doesn’t kiss back.

He resists, even when his lips quirk up because Kili sometimes turns it into a game of trying to surprise him enough to get a reaction.

They slow down with time, become more thorough and patient. They turn into _I like you, I care for you, I don’t like seeing you hurt_ , and he eases into those better, thinks they are almost worth it, especially when they end up with him wrapped up in overly long arms and held tight for a moment.

Kili always asks him after, but the answer is always the same.

Later, he’s not sure exactly how it happens.

It’s warm and easy and Kili tilts his head until he has the perfect angle, his fingers carding through his hair, rubbing against the back of his skull, and it’s _good_ , so good that for a moment Fili forgets that he’s not supposed to want it.

He opens his mouth only a fraction and suddenly he’s right there with him – the dialogue, the heat, the taste. The emotions are stronger now, more pronounced: _You’re important; I want you,_ and Fili sighs, can’t help but kiss back.

He thinks he must have accidentally swallowed a bit of Kili and he’s going insane now.

“Do it again,” the brunet demands when they separate, voice rough, lips swollen, hair mused from Fili’s hands that got lost there, and for a moment Fili feels smug and oddly pleased with himself, before he remembers that he’s not meant to feel that either.

Kili is careful asking for things, even the smallest of them. He never does, if he can avoid it.

And now, tangled up in emotions like snares, Fili willingly gives up a part of himself.

There is so little he has left, such a tiny amount that hasn’t been taken already.

He never expects to gain anything in return, but that too is a lie he tells himself to survive.

“Do you feel any different?” lips whisper against his, making him growl, because it’s not about the Wolf.

“No, but we should keep trying.”

He whirls them around until he has Kili trapped and for once he takes what he wants.

Is love capable of lifting curses? He doesn’t think so, but he does learn that pleasure can reduce the pain.

 

\---

 

He collects the bones of Fili’s ribs and turns them into arrowheads.

One day he will put them between the ribs of the one who caused all this pain (in his heart).

 

\---

 

There are good days and there are bad days.

On good days he knocks himself out and only comes round when it’s almost the end.

(Kili swears at the new bruises and boils the bandages clean).

On bad days he tries to leave.

Because surely one day _he_ will be the one left behind, one day he will walk back into an empty cabin and he can’t imagine how much that will hurt.

He usually doesn’t get very far.

 

\---

 

He wakes up wrapped up in a blanket.

It’s tucked around him tightly, separating him from the cool, damp earth.

This is new; he always wakes up cold.

He closes his eyes again feeling deft fingers in his hair, carefully separating the tangles.

Is it dangerous that he’s learned to recognise that touch?

It hurts in his bones; hurts because it’s so good, so kind and selfless, like laughter and bangs that keep sliding into Kili’s eyes.

He doesn’t dare make a sound, storing this moment in that tiny part of his soul where the bright things live.

This is his most vulnerable: chest still bleeding, naked, cold and with no weapon to hand.

He curls up a bit tighter, a bit more into a ball and moves his toes in the soft, warm cocoon.

“We can go home when you feel ready,” Kili says, his hands never ceasing their soothing movement and Fili drifts off into sleep.

 

\---

 

“Perhaps it’s about killing the witch. Perhaps we could find him still -”

He can see hope in those dark eyes and he hates himself when he says,

“He was long gone before that first sunset. There is no trail left to follow.”

 

\---

 

There are good days and bad days.

On good days Fili lets him heat the water in a tin bath, clean his hair and dress his wounds. He sleeps a little, eats and tells him stories that come from books, before it’s time to go.

Kili always tries to kiss him when his heart beats the hardest in his chest and it’s often during that time.

On bad days they argue and Fili storms out, disappearing for days, sometimes weeks. Kili tracks the Wolf, trying to stay close, but also keep his distance, and they both hurt more than they deserve.

On really bad days Kili helps him bury the bodies.

 

\---

 

“Where did you go? It’s been so long this time.”

“I was trying to outrun the sun.”

 

\---


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

Perhaps, Kili thinks, it’s about learning to love the Monster.

“No.”

“But you don’t know! It _could_ be the key to it all!”

“Or I could wake up one morning with a string of your guts hanging from my mouth!”

“I told you, it had the chance and it let me go!”

“It was badly wounded. It calculated the odds and decided it couldn’t win. It’s about survival and instinct and in no way about some stupid romantic notion of me being able to influence its choices! You know this as well as I do!”

“It’s either that or watching you die, each day, every day, for the rest of your natural life!”

Fili has no response to that.

 

\---

 

He tries to defend himself, he really does.

“It’s nearly autumn. Your family will miss you by now. You should go back.”

“Do you truly want me gone? Will it make it easier?”

Fili thinks of the silence and the emptiness, he thinks of screaming, of howling until he has no voice left, of insanity that would be mercy and the world that doesn’t care.

“I am the one cursed; you shouldn’t suffer for it.”

Kili is silent for a moment, before his eyes grow distant and he says, “There is no one left. No one to miss me.”

 _Except you,_ he doesn’t say.

 _Except me,_ Fili doesn’t respond.

 

\---

 

It takes months just to get close.

It takes considerably less time to learn how to climb trees faster than he can run.

But while the Beast snarls and curls up under the tree to guard its fleshy prize, it isn’t hunting something else and there’s value in that.

It’s also how he gets to see Fili change back for the first time, how he gets to be there when the prince gasps in pain and claws at the leaves.

It’s worth it, when he can jump down and wrap his arms around him.

 

\---

 

He’s scared of losing consciousness, of crows pecking at his eyes.

Not that he’s ever told anyone.

It happened to him, several times – when the cold is so bad that without the thick fur he doesn’t stand a chance, and it’s always a race to get to his feet before the world slips away from him.

He hates that feeling of losing himself.

“Fili!”

Snow petals, burning hands, thick covers and that ridiculous contraption between a cot and a sledge that Kili put together in the autumn.

The world around him melts away on a whimper and if this isn’t trust then he doesn’t know what is.

 

\---

 

Fili asks only once.

“Remember me. One day, when this is over, remember me the way I was.”

 

\---

 

He’s not sure later when exactly he starts talking to the Wolf, but it seems to help.

It’s a noise that the animal can recognise, use to gauge his position, and, with time, learn to respect.

For the first time the Wolf gains a Guardian.

 

\---

 

“Do you truly believe?” Fili asks one day with lips swollen and eyes unguarded. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Because I’m far more stubborn than any curse.”

Fili snorts, but allows it when Kili endeavours to steal his soul for himself.

 

\---

 

It takes months before he’s allowed to stay nearby. He sends his arrows flying to warn, to thwart the Beast, until rumours spread of condemned souls and evil living in the forest that cannot be defeated.

_Stay away._

Stories told by those who lived.

 

\---

 

It’s spring now and it’s something of a miracle that Fili is still capable of marvelling at life, his eyes wide when he touches fragile shoots with bloodied fingers, and Kili has never seen anyone this strong.

He’s still hurt, tortured beyond imagination and he still fears the night; but when weeks turn into months and there are no more corpses to be buried it’s like something within him starts to heal.

It’s like Fili is once more unfolding and touching his edges to re-learn what shape he is now.

 

\---

 

_Perhaps it’s about learning to love the Monster._

Fili is a killer. By any law ever set by men, he deserves to die and one or even several dozen lives saved won’t wash the blood away from his hands.

It’s a very small step for him to start believing that he deserves what is happening to him.

These are the battles that Kili fights for him most ferociously – with laughter, with fury, with a fierce scowl and fingers twining with his own, partly for the pleasure of the simple contact, partly to pin them down and hold them steady.

 

\---

 

It takes time for him to accept the truth, to allow Fili his own morality and conscience. He will never be completely whole, but it’s one thing to try and heal him, and it’s another to take away his scars.

Things are shifting between them, like continental plates, like mountains crumbling and new valleys splitting open and it feels important; it feels like it should be enough.

Every day a kiss, careful, infused with emotions. A new meaning, new hope.

But every day the sun sets and Fili screams anew.

 

\---

 

He tells himself that Kili’s laughter is for other people.

His voice is for the forest to hear, his steady hands are for hunting.

He’s sunshine and glittering water of the stream and Fili is only a bloodied corpse that still jerks sometimes, at best illuminated like a grotesque reflection of someone who was once alive.

 

\---

 

In the quiet morning hours Kili tries to guess what Fili was like before.

He imagines those eyes always bright, and the little twist of a smile free of pain.

He ponders fate and stars and considers if they could have met, talked and laughed together, and learned to hold on to each other, if Fili hadn’t been cursed.

When it’s almost time to go and find him, he wonders if Fili was always his.

 

\---

 

He watches the endless depths of the soft brown eyes and thinks that they are too gentle for a hunter.

Kili hurts too much for one who has to take life.

He tucks in the edges of the bandages together with the tendrils of fury that threaten to unravel every time he sees Fili broken.

Fili closes his eyes and wonders if he somehow corrupted Kili with hatred.

He braces himself as if he had to face another sunset, catching Kili’s hand before he can pull away.

He places it low on his hip, along the boundary between the rest of his body and the rest of himself, warm calloused fingers like a brand on his naked skin. This too will hurt, but then everything in his life does, and if it means that Kili will be saved, then for the first time it will be worth it.

“Isn’t this the one thing you haven’t tried yet?” he asks slowly, locking their eyes together.

He withstands a gaze like burning villages and realises in that one moment, that there will be no going back, that he will ruin himself for this.

“Fili, no –“

“I’ve never been with anyone like that. There must be some sort of otherworldly significance to that,” he whispers. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

Kili is like an arrow released when his hand bolts from his hip to cradle his cheek so he can hiss right in his face, “ _you_ are what I always wanted! But not like this!”

“Kili. There will never be any other –“

“No, you don’t get to say this! I _love_ you, you bastard!”

It’s like a blow and the gentlest embrace rolled into one and Fili is left to tremble as Kili storms outside. He closes his eyes and watches his walls crumble into dust and thinks that this must be what the end of the world feels like.

_“Do you feel any different?”_

This is how Fili starts to believe.

 

\---

 

When the sun sets less than two hours later, Fili dies, knowing the bitter taste of betrayed hope.

 

\---

 

“I’m sorry.”

Quiet and broken among the dripping blood.

“Don’t move. What happened? It’s so much worse –“

“I tried to claw my heart out.”

Silence. A kiss. Moisture sliding down his cheek.

“I love you.”

“I know.”

 

\---

 

They don’t talk about how they could possibly survive this.

Neither of them thinks they will.

 

\---

 

He wants to hold Fili’s hand.

When it’s time, he wants to walk out into the fading light with their fingers intertwined, help him pull his clothes off, share his last moments with him.

He wants to pull his naked body tight against his own so he isn’t cold; wants to cradle his head against his shoulder and whisper “don’t look,” as the skin is split and the ribs are broken.

He wants the words “I’ll wait for you,” to be the last thing Fili hears.

He wants to swallow his death on a kiss, curl around his soul and never give it back.

 

\---

 

“Why aren’t you fighting? Why aren’t you furious, lashing out?! If it was me, I’d want to rip his heart out in turn, and if I couldn’t, everybody else’s!”

Blue eyes look up from a piece of wood, which Fili is slowly whittling away into a form of a horse. His gaze slides lower until it comes to a stop on top of Kili’s chest.

 _Because I’d end up ripping out yours,_ he doesn’t say.

Instead –

“I am. Everyday. To remember who I am. Who I was. To make sure it doesn’t win. Anger doesn’t liberate you; it only takes away what little you have left.”

 

\---

 

He watches Kili’s fingers move over his injuries and wonders if one day Kili might love him enough to set him free.

And if he doesn’t, he wonders if he could be strong enough to do the same for Kili.

 

\---

 

Later he will remember that he moved without any conscious choice.

His ears catch the familiar sound of a bowstring being drawn and Kili drops to the ground from his perch a few paces in front of the Wolf, putting himself in the line of fire.

“He’s mine,” he snarls at the surrounding forest, low and dangerous, even though he wouldn’t have enough time to draw himself.

It was foolish really to believe that the villagers wouldn’t send another hunter.

He spots the faint glimmer of the arrow tip first, then the man himself – deep hood, dark clothes, mud on his hands and face to hide him.

The Wolf growls and he’s conscious that it’s getting closer and whatever understanding they had is lost now, in the face of killing intent and raw instinct.

“He’s _mine_ ,” Kili hisses once more, one hand curling around the handle of a knife behind his belt.

It’s an unwritten rule that no hunter will ever take another’s prey.

There’s a barely perceptible nod and the man melts back into the darkness.

Kili has just about enough time to drop the knife and jump to catch one of the lower branches and pull his scrambling feet up before the snapping jaws can close around his ankles.

That night he dreams of a carcass pierced by countless arrows. He wakes up on a scream when the dream shifts and the first rays of sun melt away the fur, revealing the body and bloodied blond hair.

 

\---

 

Kili spends his days afraid and curled up tightly within himself.

_What if – What if it isn’t working because it’s not his love that Fili needs?_

What if somewhere out there there’s someone else just for him, someone he could embrace and love back?

What if Kili is holding him back, standing in his way, making him - _torturing him_ , responsible for 273 deaths so far?

He knows he loves and he knows his love to be true. It’s the taste of blood in his mouth when he thinks of letting Fili go, of a world where there is no happy ending.

He thinks not loving Fili might be a bit like not breathing.

 

\---

 

He was so sure, the sort of certainty that feels as if the universe aligned itself all in relation to this one truth.

“I love you,” he pants out furiously, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I _love_ you so much, more than life, more than _anything_ ,” until there are tears rolling down his cheek and his kisses are full of sobs.

 

\---

 

“You aren’t happy here.”

Fingers sliding through the dark hair and lingering along the ends of the unruly strands.

“You should go back.”

 

\---

 

The next day Fili doesn’t return.

 

\---

 

“Please,” he whispers on his knees to the uncaring sunset. “He’s all alone.”

 

\---

 

By the time he’s put himself back together and painstakingly wrapped himself in the things that really matter, the trail has gone cold.

Kili grits his teeth and swears he will wander to the ends of the earth if that’s what it takes to find him.

_I love him. I will never stop as long as I draw breath._

 

\---

 

Fili doesn’t bother moving from where he comes round. There is no point – he thinks he’s now come far enough.

His chest is bleeding, but he doesn’t bother with that either.

He doesn’t do anything – doesn’t fight it when the pain explodes in his chest anew each evening, lets it tear him apart as it pleases.

He curls up tight against the cold and tries to sleep, because when he closes his eyes, if he’s lucky, he might remember the laugh lines.

He can’t tell how many days pass like this before he can’t take it anymore.

He drags himself to his feet and thinks of the end.

 

\---

 

“Tell me about the sea,” Fili asks one heady afternoon.

“The sea is what your eyes hold.”

“They hold no such thing.”

“When was the last time you bothered to look? I see the waves crashing against the rocks and the power, within each drop, to make even the hardest stone crumble. I look into your eyes and I believe that you can never truly be tamed.”

 

\---

 

He finally picks up the trail two weeks later; and it’s a trail of blood.

It ends on a cliff side, tall above the roaring waves below, almost glowing in the early morning sun.

If he thought Fili had been suffering before, it’s nothing compared to what he looks like now: naked, shivering and covered in blood. Fresh wounds, bruises, his lush golden hair glued together into an impossible tangle with dirt.

An empty stare, beyond even pain.

 _What if I was too late?_ Kili’s mind screams at him and he aches to offer even the smallest of comforts, just a touch, just a tiny space in which he could hide from what he is. _What if there isn’t enough of Fili left to be able to feel anything at all?_

And Kili _loves him_ , now more than ever, even this mass of bruises and cracked lips.

“Fili…” he moans, approaching him like a wild animal. “Don’t -!”

“Kili –“ his lips move but there is barely any sound.

“It won’t work,” he tries. “It will only revive you, but you’ll be down there in that boiling hell and I don’t know how I will –“

Live.

Get you out of there.

Save you.

I don’t know how I can save you.

“Not if there’s no body left. I can’t draw breath if I have no lungs.”

“No!!” shrill and panicked because Kili can’t imagine the world where Fili doesn’t exist. “Please! I _love you_! Maybe it’s not enough to break the curse, but at least I can look after you until –“

“No. You –“ he turns around and smiles, blue eyes brimming in equal measures with love and unimaginable suffering, spilling over and sliding down his cheek “- You belong with meadows and sunlight and people. I won’t let you throw your life away because of something as broken as me. I cannot be saved, Kili; you could have never saved me. It was a dream…”

“Fili!!” He’s moving, and Fili spreads his arms, swaying dangerously at the very edge –

“I have loved you in that dream. I love you now. I always will.”

Words whispered in a voice hoarse from screaming, so quiet that the wind might steal them away for himself. But Kili catches them before they can disintegrate, just like he catches Fili’s wrist with fingers nerveless with fear, because here, in the space between the two heartbeats, the world comes to an end and the time finds its completion.

 _Every hex has its release_.

Fili falters, something like a shock running across his face, eyes widening, helpless as he is yanked back into Kili’s arms, into _life_.

_He’s mine._

He can see a soul inside Fili’s eyes tearing itself free, and he watches Fili sway, one hand flying to his chest and the dawning agony of understanding -

_You could have never saved me._

Kili couldn’t. It was always about Fili.

_This isn’t a fairytale._

There is no Wolf now, nothing to heal him. There is only Fili and Kili and the love that cannot stop the bleeding.

He saves himself inside that last spark of consciousness, as his body tries to comprehend the damage that has been done to it and he makes his choice for this one last thing he has left to give.

Regret, as blue eyes meet brown, for once impossibly clear and full of sunshine and Kili thinks that this is what he could have had, this is what _should_ have been his, but -

A smile, gentle and kind like a _thank you_.

“I love you.”

Kili catches his body before it can hit the ground.

 

\---


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

Screams, fevered murmurs; warmth.

Arms closing around him and oblivion, dark and sweet.

 

\---

 

Kili watches Fili’s knuckles turn white as he grips the covers in agony and promises entire kingdoms for one more heartbeat.

 

\---

 

“Fight, Fili. Fight for me.”

If he was blind and deaf he’d know that love.

 

\---

 

He doesn’t notice the state of Fili’s feet until they’ve made it back.

When he does, he has to take big, gulping breaths to stop the fresh tears threatening to spill.

He’s seen Fili hurt before of course, sometimes so badly that there was very little he could do until the Wolf healed him, but this – this Fili did to himself.

In order to get away from Kili.

Cuts, bruises, a puncture wound almost all the way through. Dirt and pine needles stuck under the skin. Most of it infected and swollen.

_He walked barefoot._

The need to go must have been strong enough that even the Wolf was running away. He lost his clothes and with it his boots. And still he walked on; away from Kili.

Every step must have been an agony.

A breath, another.

He picks up a cloth and the same camomile extract that Fili used on his knuckles before, setting to work.

Kili tells himself that if he can get Fili’s soles healed, it will be so much easier for him to walk _back_ to him.

 

\---

 

Days thick and heavy like molasses.

Kili counts breaths and heartbeats, loses count and starts all over again.

 

\---

 

“I thought I died.”

He doesn’t bother opening his eyes.

A pause, exhale. “You came close. Very, very close.”

 

\---

 

Impossibly tired blue eyes blink themselves awake slowly, fluttering eyelashes like wings of trapped birds.

“Fili,” Kili smiles, feeling like entire lifetimes have passed since he last saw a glimpse of that gentle soul.

A glimmer of recognition and a faint smile.

Exhausted, but alive. Still _Kili’s_.

He closes his eyes again and leans into Kili’s hand on the side of his face. Something just for Kili.

When he opens them again his gaze lands on the golden tendrils of a lazy sunset sliding over the wall and floor.

“Go,” he whispers, suddenly hoarse and terrified. “Get out, lock the door, try to block the window. Don’t come back no matter what you hear.”

“Fili –“

“ _Please!_ I can’t hurt you. Not you.”

When Kili closes the door it’s like he shut his heart away. He slides along the coarse wood to the ground and thinks of the hundreds of other evenings when Fili waited patiently for his punishment and death; evenings he will never be able to save him from.

He considers if fear is worth the truth and he forces himself to stay away until the moon is high in the sky.

When he comes back the man he loves is sitting at the edge of the cot, perfectly still except for the tears rolling down his cheeks while his eyes trace the constellations as if they could memorise it all in a single glimpse.

“I forgot how beautiful they were,” he whispers reverently when Kili comes to sit next to him, twining their fingers together because he doesn’t know what to say.

 _They are all in your eyes; the sea is calm now, calm enough to reflect them_.

“Are you sure?” Fili asks, and it’s such a small question compared to the vastness of the response.

“It’s been six days.”

He feels a twitch of a shock in Fili’s fingers and then he’s right there – he wraps his arms around his love, pulls him gently to his chest to hold him as Fili trembles with quiet sobs, which must hurt like hell, but are just as necessary as breathing.

“Never again, Fili. No more curses. You are free now.”

 

\---

 

“You saved me.“

“No. You saved yourself. You were the one to break the hex. All you needed was someone to love.”

Fili is quiet for a moment, while the universe is destroyed and reborn again inside a single shaky breath he takes.

“No. I needed _you_.”

 

\---

 

Kili sleeps sitting on a stool, with only his head pillowed on top of his arms at the edge of the cot.

He looks so tired now that all Fili wants to do is tug him onto the bed and wrap himself completely around him until he too can heal.

 

\---

 

“You don’t need saving anymore.”

He cradles Kili’s fractured heart as carefully as he knows how, his thumb brushing his cheek to get his attention.

“I will always love you more than you think any human capable of loving. I need you more than breath, more than my own heartbeat and I will give you everything that I am, if you’ll have it. This is still only the beginning of our lives and I want mine to be with you.”

This is still new; they haven’t had the chance to fully process the words whipped by the wind on the cliffside, to let themselves sink into the possibilities they created.

They haven’t yet learned how to be happy.

 

\---

 

It’s Kili’s hands that lend Fili strength when he needs it.

The first brush of calloused fingertips against the raw scar tissue on Fili’s chest leaves him pale and quiet. When they start to tremble, Kili does what he always wanted to do: he wraps his arms around Fili from behind and covers his hand with his own, until their fingers have laced together.

They are steady like this – together – and Kili kisses his gratitude and affection into the skin of Fili’s neck and collarbone.

 

\---

 

“So what now, Princeling? Onwards to reclaim your kingdom? Are we to raise armies and call the banners?”

He likes how it’s ‘we’.

“I’ve only just reclaimed myself. Give me five minutes to catch my breath.”

 

\---

 

If he closes his eyes he feels almost weightless.

The cool water of the stream washes away everything, even the little aches of his body; it’s such a luxurious thing: life without pain.

Fili relaxes his shoulders and lets the gentle current caress him as it pleases.

He smiles, when familiar hands slip into his hair, wet strands twisting around the pads of Kili’s fingers as if they missed him. He allows that too, submitting to some careful scrubbing and tilting his head as required.

“Do it,” he whispers with a slow smile, when the touch lingers. “Braid my hair. I know you want to. It won’t change what I am, but it will please you.”

“ _Who_ you are,” Kili corrects softly.

“ _Who_ I am,” Fili agrees, shifting to stand and get out of the water. “You’ll want me dry for this.”

“Fili, no! Not with your soles! Please. The pebbles closer to the shore will hurt your feet.”

He rolls his eyes but allows himself to be carried onto the grassy bank, where he stretches out comfortably, watching the sun lap the moisture off his skin. He still marvels at the way his body looks without the bruises, with scars getting the chance to fade.

He expects the familiar weight of prince’s braids, but it’s not what his fingers find.

Warrior braids, simple, but tight, starting at his temples and curling comfortably away from his face. Just behind his right ear a smaller but much more intricate braid, declaring him loved and belonging. A very different one behind his left ear, loose and plain: a braid of mourning.

“What’s this one for?”

He feels Kili’s arms wrap themselves around his shoulders, when he whispers: “close to five years’ worth of deaths of the man I love - the years you lost. All those nights we couldn’t share. The pain and fear that I couldn’t stand.”

“It’s in the past.”

“It is, but mourning is how you learn to let it go.”

 

\---

 

“When it would get really bad, I used to imagine that it was all just a dream. That someone would come along and wake me up. Someone would _save me_.”

“And now you did it. You woke up, Fili.”

“Did I? It would be so much easier to believe that this happy ending is a figment of my imagination. I have lived through a hundred of those. Why would this one be any different? Why, after all this time, would I be saved?”

He inhales a mouthful of Kili and doesn’t try to resist when he pours right into his soul, filling him full of this brilliant light that doesn’t need an explanation.

“Those dreams. Did they ever feel more real than this?”

“No,” he breathes, eyes soft and unguarded. “Nothing’s more real than this.”

 

\---

 

“What do you want?” Fili asks one heady afternoon, sprawled barefoot in the tall grass, his toes idly tracing the outer seam of Kili’s pants.

“Hm?”

“Isn’t this how it normally works? Half a princess and a kingdom’s hand in marriage?” Blue eyes watch him, unreadable beneath the delightful sparks of humour.

“Gods, I hope there aren’t any princesses involved, halved or otherwise,” he groans. “It was bad enough with you.”

Fili snorts, treating Kili to a perfect glimpse of those elusive dimples. “I’m serious,” he insists, leaning back to prop himself up on his elbows. “What. Do. You. Want?”

A breath, shared between them. “I want to build a house. For both of us. Here, where nobody knows us. We could use the trees for timber that would clear the passage to the main road. Perhaps keep a small inn. Enough money to buy the barest necessities in town and a book or two for you.”

Kili looks away. These are simple things, not fit for a king. He’s asking for a lot.

“Tell me,” lips insist along his jaw, forcing him to turn his head again.

“I want – I want a life with you. And a bed,” he pauses at a corner of his mouth like crossroads.

“A bed?”

“Yes, a proper one. One that you’d find comfortable. One where you’d feel safe.”

Another pause on the cusp of a kiss, blue eyes searching his, thoughtful and assessing.

“Well, you did ask –“

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I want it too.” Somehow there’s a movement and Fili winces a little but then he’s on top and Kili falls into the poppies and cornflowers. “And a bed. One where we’d _both_ feel comfortable.”

The kiss that follows lasts all summer.

 

\---

 

He makes the furniture because he can’t help build the house.

Not with a fragile heart and ribs broken out so many times, they grew back together all gnarly. Instead he carves the headboard of their bed and thinks of Kili stretched out in it. He thinks of closeness and guards that idea carefully in his heart.

Suddenly there is a future for him and he forgot what that felt like.

 

\---

 

He stood naked before Kili a hundred times, but it was different back then, because he couldn’t be loved. Flesh meant merely tissue, muscles and bone, of little value, stretched over a shattered soul.

Something capable of registering pain.

He doesn’t try to avoid Kili’s eyes, doesn’t try to hide anything, not even the hideous scars littering his skin.

He certainly doesn’t expect it to feel like _this_ : touch lighting up the fires in his blood, calloused fingertips against his skin, gliding through the fine hair at the small of his back. Embrace, but different, different texture, Kili’s warmth, his smell, his heartbeat thundering fast in the arteries.

Fili’s body comes alive under Kili’s ministrations and he can’t stop the shivers running through him.

He hides in Kili’s hair, and that’s okay. They slow down until it’s just hands learning each other’s bodies, just touch, just closeness and comfort and the first time for shared dreams.

 

\---

 

The man is hardly their first visitor, but Kili is relieved that he’s travelling alone – it gets awkward trying to cram more than two people into the little hunter’s lodge they offer for overnight stay.

“Travelling far?” he asks pleasantly, leading the man’s horse and introducing him to Hugo in the tiny stables they set up to the side.

“Not very far at all –“ Kili looks up at an awkward pause “- in fact I think I’ve arrived exactly where I wanted to be.”

Fili stands as white as a sheet on top of the stepping stone to the hunter’s lodge, hands balled into fists, visibly trembling.

“Kili –“

“I was wondering what happened when the Beast returned. I was worried you’d forgotten about me, but I see you merely got distracted. Did you think you deserved happiness? After what you did to me…”

“Kili, run!!”

He notices the slight movement of the man’s hand in his direction, but it has no effect on him. He ignores Fili’s words and dives into the stables because there’s a bow hidden on the wall inside and he has a promise to keep.

In the time it takes him to draw, the Wolf is already rushing towards Fili, the Golden Death, lightning fast, but not as fast as the magic, slamming into him violently and tearing out a piercing cry, louder even than the growing chant.

He blinks – a choice of life over revenge and hatred burning through his soul – and releases his arrow.

This time it flies true.

He’s grown to know this animal, and it has never ceased to be anything but wild, but it has become something of a companion. He watches the blood from the torn artery spray the earth, as the Wolf barrels into the ground with a pitiful whimper right in front of Fili’s feet.

He stopped the possession, but not the magic itself and the same screams Kili heard a hundred times fill the air once more, as the prince falls to his knees, trying to hold himself together, while the spell burns through his bones and blood, searching, searching, trying to rip the life out of him –

“Fili!”

But it can’t.

It’s looking for Fili’s heartbeat and when it doesn’t find it, there is only one thing it can do.

That’s the trouble with magic: once released it demands to be satisfied.

“Wrong heart, you bastard,” Kili hisses out, feathers of another arrow by his cheek and a point made out of human bone aimed steady.

He watches calmly as the spell strings the man by his wrists, moving to stand in front of Fili, partly to protect him, partly to spare him the view. He soaks up the screams when the skin is ripped open, lets them wash over him and put out the smouldering fury that has lived in his gut for too long. He takes in the soft click of ribs falling to the ground and remembers Fili’s blank look as he stood on the cliffside, his bleeding feet and the crushing guilt he will never be rid of.

“End it,” says the quiet voice behind him and Kili releases his arrow.

 

\---

 

After, it’s eerily quiet, like there never was any sound in the world to begin with.

“You’re a witch,” the words sound in that silence, simple yet unyielding.

A pause. “My mother had the Gift and I have it from her. She burned at the stake for it. By your father’s order.”

“You _hexed me_!!”

“Yes, I hexed you, to keep you alive! I bound your heart with mine, so as long as one of them beats, the other will as well.”

“After _everything_ I’ve been through!! You _saw_ what it did to me!”

“I saved your life. I did it because I _love_ you.”

“So did he!!” Fili is screaming by now, fury and false heartbeat pounding in his chest.

Silence. Then: “Are you going to burn me too?”

He stumbles back at the look of quiet fear in Kili’s eyes and drops heavily to the low wooden bench next to the cabin, hiding his face in his hands.

He can’t breathe.

“Get out.”

“Fili?”

“Get out!!”

 

\---

 

He looks up again, when a shadow blocks the moonlight over where his hand is gently stroking the fur of the Wolf’s head in his lap.

“I thought we should burry him,” Kili says, shovel in his hand, eyes full of sadness.

Fili’s vision blurs and he nods shakily.

 

\---

 

He sways a bit when the sun rises over a sad little mound of damp ground and the Wolf rests one final time.

An arm wraps around his waist so Kili can pull him closer and kiss the top of his head.

He breathes in, once, full of fresh forest, wounds not yet fully healed and terrifying, buddying hope.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

Kili kisses his hair again and doesn’t say a word.

 

\---

 

He wakes up alone and somehow he just knows that Kili is gone.

His knuckles are white on the low footboard of the bed he carved for the two of them and he forces himself to breathe through the choking, bitter mixture of paralysing fear, regret, anger and betrayal rising in his throat.

 _I did it_ , he thinks, cannot stop the thought before it sinks in.

He puts on the soft, lined boots that Kili cobbled together for him and opens the door to the rest of his life.

 

\---

 

“Tell me.”

The words sound subdued in the soft dampness of a misty morning and it’s been some time since Kili allowed anyone to sneak up on him.

He turns around, but doesn’t dare look up. At the very least he owes Fili the truth.

“It’s still your heart. You’re still just as alive as you were before. Nothing about you has changed. It’s just _my_ heartbeat now.”

“How long?”

“Since the cliffs. There was no Wolf and I couldn’t keep you alive in any other way. We _deserved_ to be happy. We deserved to at least get a chance,” he whispers.

“And yet it’s a hex. And every hex has its release,” Fili repeats his words slowly, then adds: “will it break if I stop loving you?”

“No. I could never… do that to you. I’m not _him_. You’re free, Fili. The distance between us won’t matter either.”

“Kili.”

“It will break if you decide you don’t want it, if you reject it. I don’t know if it will kill you, or if your heart might learn its own rhythm by then.”

Fili nods thoughtfully and moves closer, until Kili’s back hits a tree and he’s able to bracket him with his arms on either side of his shoulders.

“We did deserve a chance. We still _do_ ,” Fili agrees, softer now, blue eyes searching his. “I didn’t come here to torture you, Kili. I came here so I could understand. I came here so I could _get you back_. I love you,” he says simply, “and that will never change. I won’t – I could never hurt you.”

“You wanted me gone.”

“So you left, because you thought that to love me meant to let me go.”

He takes a breath. “I am the very thing you hate the most.”

“And I am the Monster. And you’re not even close about the things I hate the most.”

“Fili –“

“And it never stopped you doing this –“

He melts into the kiss, curls into the steady frame of Fili’s body and allows himself to wrap his arms around him, because it feels like forgiveness, like warmth and the soul he would protect at the cost of his own life.

“Do you feel any different?”

“No.”

“Good,” Fili smiles, pulling back, except for his hand tangled in the wild strands of Kili’s hair. “We will talk and you will explain. About different kinds of magic, how it works and what it feels like. About hexes and breaking them.”

“And you will listen?”

“And I will listen. A Monster and a Witch; we make quite a pair.”

“I don’t care; you were never a Monster to me!”

“And you could never be just a Witch to me. You have saved me and I felt too broken to be able to understand. I’m sorry I hurt you. I never realised, but I almost allowed that man to destroy it all in the end. But I won’t lose you, Kili; I can’t.”

He sniffs, eyes closed against all the burning emotions threatening to spill over, their foreheads pressed tightly together and words spoken using the same breath.

“Let’s go home.”

 

\---

 

THE END.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Tumblr.](http://linane-art.tumblr.com/)


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